Deranged Down Under: ‘To Hell and Outback’

That’s the question a friend posted on Facebook in response to my search for horror geeks who would talk to me about the exploitation subgenre Ozploitation. I’ll forgive him for not knowing that the Oz here refers to Australia, not Munchkinland. Ozploitation remains an under-the-radar monster, at least in the United States.

The IFC Center in New York hopes to change that with “To Hell and Outback,” an introduction to Ozploitation debauchery that runs through Sept. 30. The comprehensive series includes proto-Ozploitation films, like Peter Weir’s disappearance mystery “Picnic at Hanging Rock” (1975), but also modern oddballs like Sean Byrne’s twisted-prom dark comedy “The Loved Ones” (2009).

What passes for exploitation in Australia? Marauding packs of bullies and car chases shot through a “fetishistic lens,” as the director Quentin Tarantino said in the 2008 Ozploitation documentary “Not Quite Hollywood.” Another common subject? The menace that is the country’s dangerously rugged terrain.

Australia “was a Western culture that was founded by convicts stranded in an incredibly hostile natural environment,” said Colin Geddes, a curator for the horror streaming service Shudder and a former international programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival. “Their cinema embraces this and is filled with death-defying challenges, threat and survival from both man and nature.”

Unlike blaxploitation, a genre that had its heyday in the ’70s, Ozploitation continues to thrive. There are horror movies, like the mother-protector fable “The Babadook”; the newly released killer-hillbilly thriller “Killing Ground”; and action films like the Oscar-winning “Mad Max: Fury Road,” with its throbbing emphasis on survival and tricked-out vehicles. Here are other Ozploitation films to check out; three can still be seen at the IFC Center.

‘Patrick’ (1978)

Set at a Melbourne hospital, this creepy spine-tingler is about a handsome young man who uses his psychic powers to throw people into the air and otherwise interfere in the life of a nurse he’s fallen in love with. As “Carrie” did two years before, “Patrick” tapped into the cinematic fascination with diabolical telekinesis that surfaced in the late ’70s. Mr. Tarantino said the movie inspired part of his “Kill Bill, Vol. 1.” (Streaming on Fandor and available on DVD and Blu-ray)

‘Road Games’ (1981)

This down-and-dirty psychological white knuckler is about a poetry-loving truck driver (Stacy Keach) who picks up a hitchhiker (a post-”Halloween” Jamie Lee Curtis) as he hunts down the killer of young women along deserted stretches of the Australian nowhere. Initial reaction was mixed. One fan praised it as “‘Rear Window’ on a highway.” But The New York Times, questioning the film’s American cast, wrote: “The Outback might as well be the New Jersey Turnpike.” (Friday and Saturday at IFC and available on DVD and Blu-ray)

‘Razorback’ (1984)

Tapping into the exploitation genre’s love of animals gone wrong, this intense chiller tracks the path of a giant wild boar — “as big as a rhino,” as it’s described in the film — that goes on a killing rampage in the outback. The film is often compared to “Jaws” in how it sparingly yet viciously shows the animal in attack. When it was released theatrically in New York, it was on a double bill with perhaps Australia’s most famous cinematic export: “Mad Max.” (Sept. 22-23 at IFC)

‘Dead End Drive-In’ (1986)

Set in a futuristic 1995, this psycho-shocker is about a drive-in cinema where punks and other young misfits are held captive and fed a diet of drugs, music and cheeseburgers as the world outside crumbles. A mix of ’80s rebellion film and dystopian political parable — “‘The Road Warrior’ crossed with ‘The Exterminating Angel’” as The Los Angeles Times put it — the movie also touches on Australia’s history of racial tensions. (Available on Amazon via Shudder)

‘Wolf Creek’ (2005)

Evil that lurks in Australia’s rocky and rough landscape continues to feed the modern Ozploitation film. Set in the outback, this grisly pageant of suffering tells an ultraviolent story of backpackers who become the victim of a torture-loving loner. The director, Greg McLean, said he took cues from the life of Ivan Milat, an Australian serial killer in the 1990s. The film spawned both a sequel and a TV series. (Aug. 18-19 at IFC)